Hai Duong: Eating chicken hotpot, customers were charged an additional 200,000 VND for labor and hotpot water.

On May 17, on many social media platforms, a guest's post attracted the attention of the online community. According to the guest named TL, a group of 5 people came to dine at a restaurant in Hai Duong .

Here, the group asked for chicken hotpot and was quoted 600,000 VND. The guests ordered a few other side dishes such as sweet potato cocoons, cucumbers, and peanuts. The meal went without any problems until the guests paid.

The hot pot bill was charged an additional 200,000 VND for the labor of making the chicken, hot pot broth and vegetables (Photo: TL).

The customer received a bill of nearly VND850,000, including an additional VND200,000 noted as the cost of making chicken, hot pot broth and vegetables. When asking the counter staff, the customer did not receive a satisfactory answer, so he paid in full and left.

However, upset with the "incomprehensible" amount of money, the customer posted on social media, saying that the restaurant's calculation was unreasonable.

The post immediately received a lot of interaction with many mixed opinions. Some comments said that some restaurants will charge extra service fees if customers bring in outside food and ask the kitchen to cook it for them.

"It's like buying seafood outside and having the restaurant's kitchen prepare it, they will charge the customer a service fee depending on the regulations of each place," said an account named Binh Nguyen.

However, in this case, the customer confirmed that they did not bring outside food into the restaurant. All services they used were provided by the restaurant.

According to research, this is Happy restaurant in Happy urban area, Thai Hoc commune, Binh Giang district (Hai Duong province).

Speaking to Dan Tri reporter, the restaurant owner confirmed that the incident happened at this restaurant at noon on May 17.

A hot pot dish at the restaurant (Photo: Character provided).

According to the restaurant owner, when making the bill for the customer, due to confusion and lack of experience, the counter staff added the cost of "labor for making chicken, hot pot broth and vegetables" at the price of 200,000 VND.

This amount is included in the restaurant's service charge list in the event that a customer brings food and asks for help preparing it.

At noon, when the customer complained, the inexperienced staff did not know how to handle it.

The customer contacted the owner's phone number. But at that time, the owner had his phone on silent mode so he couldn't grasp the situation.

That same afternoon, when the phone received many strange calls and messages, the restaurant owner realized what had happened and checked with the staff. Realizing the staff had handled the situation wrongly, the restaurant owner called to apologize to the customer and returned 200,000 VND.

"We called to apologize to the customer for the incident. This is the first time the restaurant has encountered such a mistake," the owner said.

After the incident, the restaurant owner said he had reminded and disciplined the staff about their service attitude towards customers to avoid similar situations.

The customer shared a photo of the bill showing extra charges for hot pot and gas (Photo: PN).

Previously, a similar incident occurred in Cat Ba ( Hai Phong ) in August 2023. Specifically, two guests ordered a hot pot for 500,000 VND but when paying, they were charged an additional 50,000 VND for hot pot water and 30,000 VND for gas, so they were upset.

However, according to the restaurant owner, two guests ordered a 500,000 VND seafood hot pot combo, sat for nearly 4 hours, asked for hot pot water 4 times, and had 2 new gas tanks replaced.

"The staff complained that the customers ordered more hot pot broth for the third time and replaced the gas tank even though there was nothing left in the pot to cook. They continued to turn on the gas tank and mostly just talked to each other and did not eat anymore," the restaurant owner explained.

Having never encountered such a case before, the restaurant owner decided to charge extra for the hot pot and gas, citing "the customer's lack of sense of saving". After much debate, the restaurant owner admitted that he had acted tactlessly, leading to the unfortunate incident.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/du-lich/hai-duong-an-lau-ga-khach-bi-tinh-them-200000-dong-tien-cong-va-nuoc-lau-20250518100758201.htm